When I was growing up, Thursday afternoon was the time the banks didn’t open. And shops didn’t stay open late, ever. And never on a Sunday, would anything be open except restaurants. Even in my 20s in a small town called Jackson Ohio it was the same.
Umbertide is like the towns from my youth, only more so. I am sure I have mentioned the “pausa” here in this journal before. For those not familiar, it is similar to the Spanish Siesta. All stores and offices close at 12:30 or 1:00 and stay closed until 4:00 or 4:30. This happens all over Italy except for the biggest cities (still small shops will close there too) and also tourist towns whose shops stay open all day. On Sunday, only the four grocery stores in town open, and only in the morning. All this takes quite a bit of getting used to for us immigrants. Italians also don’t like to rush into the week too quickly. Many places open on Monday afternoon but not Monday morning. This means one never plans anything on Monday morning. It is the way!
I was reminded of all of this this morning when walking back from the market. There are two little shops along Via Roma, one of the shopping streets. One is a housewares shop (Brescia Casalinghi). Lots of pretty nice stuff, plus stuff outside on sale for cheap.
The other shop is named Idee di Nuove di Volpi. It sells everything it seems. Casalinghi (housewares), articoli di regali (gifts), cornici (frames) and ferramenta (hardware). Yep a diverse offering! I love to browse in there. All sorts of stuff. I think in the US we called it a Sundries Shop, an old fashioned word. This picture is at Christmas with cute stuffed elves.
Florist – fioraia – next door.
Every town also has its “Chinese store”. They are always owned and run by Chinese. They are full of cheap stuff. Pretty much whatever you need, you’ll find it there, and cheap, but don’t expect it to last.
~~~~~~~ As an aside, this building is a fixture. It has been for sale forever, from way before we moved here. We could see it from our last apartment. It is a palazzo of great age. It is built into the city walls. It had fallen into disrepair. But the new super bonus incentive here and the fact it was bought by the city has allowed it to be restored. The scaffolding is gone and it looks terrific. I love that top floor loggia. I am not sure but I think it will be apartments.
It has gotten cold for Italy anyway. It is never terribly cold. Otherwise we wouldn’t have olives. But it sure feels cold. Stai caldo – stay warm! Un abbraccio a tutti e buona domenica!
Hi everyone! I know it has been a while. Once we got back from England and got through the Christmas activities things slowed down — and so did I!
The week after Christmas was quiet. The 26th is a holiday here so that was a four day weekend. Our neighbors across the hall brought us some delicious brownies. Hand decorated by Celeste and Chiara. Really sweet of them and sweet to taste too! My birthday is the 28th but I never really do anything. Having a birthday in the week after Christmas is stinky. No one feels like doing anything…including me! So that day passed quietly.
I stayed up until midnight watching the new year come in all over the world on CNN, every hour. There were some pretty amazing displays. I also wanted to see the crazy fireworks in Umbertide from our roof. I can see the town fireworks from here easily down by La Rocca, which I couldn’t see from our old apartment. And then all the Italians are mad for their own shows and boy did they ever. Our next door neighbor, with a roof terrace too, shot off some pretty big and sophisticated fireworks. I took a video which I tried to edit but it didn’t work – sorry. The fireworks farther away are the city fireworks. The ones right above me are from our next door neighbor.
New Year’s Day we went to the New Year brunch (yes a brunch!!) at Calagrana. Brunch isn’t a “thing” here. I haven’t been to one since being in the US. Great menu. It was very hard to choose. We both decided to have the Acciughe which is anchovies. Not just any anchovies but Cantabrico from Spain. With toasted bread and butter. Mmmm. Then I had the Mac and cheese 😁 But Wait! Not just your run-of-the-mill Mac n cheese…it was truffled Mac n cheese! It was good!
We had dinner at C’Era una Volta with the folks who bought Joseph and Paul’s house. Their daughter who lives in Rome came as well. It was nice to meet her. And we had dinner with Susan and Gary.
Susan was an important part of why we moved to a Umbertide in particular. She had a blog about her little vacation apartment on the piazza and I found it. Back in 2013 there weren’t as many blogs about Italy as now. I reached out to her a bit before we came. We also found another tiny blog by a (now) friend in Montone and he put us in touch with Jim our real estate agent. Jim found us a little apartment to rent for three weeks. So we came on a house hunting trip. We looked all over Umbria but by then, we found we quite liked this little town, so we bought our first apartment and flew back home to move permanently here. Thanks to Susan and Gary. The bittersweet is that they moved to Florence a couple years ago and we saw them less frequently but they still had their pretty place here. This dinner last week was our last super together here. They had come to move their belongings because they had sold their house. The end of an era. We will stay friends. I am sure.
Saturday was Epifania, Epiphany. The twelfth day of Christmas. The day the Magi came with gifts for the baby Jesus. The day before was when Befana, the Christmas witch came to visit all the children and leave gifts (or coal if you were bad) in their stockings. Remember the all Santa Claus band recently? Well this night we had an all Witch band!
Waaaay back before Christmas, you may remember the trip report of our short trip to England. Remember the lost backpack that Luther left in the rental car? Well ever since then Luther has been working to get the thing shipped back. We had the help of one of the nicest people ever to work for a rental car company, Victoria. She kindly packed the backpack in a box and affixed the label. It was ready for shipping. The first courier he chose used another company to pick things up and twice they claimed they couldn’t find the Enterprise Rent-a-car desk at the airport. Now seriously…who among us has not been able to find a rental car place in a strange airport? None of us of course! But these dolts couldn’t. So Luther regrouped and tried UPS. He got a message the package had been picked up! Yay! Then nothing. So Luther contacted UPS and they said the package had never arrived to them. They said he should check the shipper. Luther reminded them that THEY are the shipper! Hmmm. So they said they could try to track it but Luther couldn’t ask for that since he didn’t send it. He would have to ask Victoria to do it, which he did. Even though she was on vacation she said she would. Yesterday a courier dropped off a package for us and I went down to get it. It was a small box but it was from the UK! And it was from Victoria! And delivered by UPS. So the long lost backpack is back. The important item was Luther’s hearing aids. €3,500 that we didn’t want to lose. The champagne flowed last night. So relieved!
The cold weather is upon us. I find myself staying in mostly, but I am getting much done. I’m packing our smaller things, books, pottery, etc in preparation for the kitchen to try to keep the dust off. We also are trying to renew our health coverage which expires each year in December 31st. The problem. Italy passed a new budget and they changed the amount that we stranieri have to pay. But no one knows how to implement it since it just was passed December 29th but went into affect on January 1. They are just telling people here in Umbria to come back. It could put us all in limbo for a long time. But I’m hoping we will get resolution soon.
We also are doing jigsaw puzzles. We have always done this in the winter, since I was small. Luther loves them. This one is coming along. Only the really hard-to-do part is left.
I have many wishes for this year. I won’t list them all but I hope we can work together more and there will be more kindness and caring for our fellow humans.
I made a big ole batch of my chocolate chip pecan cookies which I make every year. I had a lot more places to take them this year. On Saturday I took them to Angelo, my old friend in Centro near our old apartment. And also to Irene at Bar Mary as I always have. I also took a box to Vera and her family. I just snuck into their building and left it near their door – they weren’t home. Luther and I took one box to each neighbor in our stairwell. We don’t do a lot of socializing with them, we just see them in passing. They are very nice and seemed to be happy to get them. The two little girls across from us made us a lovely thank you card which they hung near our door.
Hand made card from the little girls across the hall, Celeste and Chiara.
We were invited by friends to a Christmas open house on Friday and I took some cookies to them. They live out in the mountains between Umbertide, Pietralungo and Gubbio. Beautiful home and location. It was cozy and we really had a great time. Here is a picture we took on the way home. Amazing views as you run along a high spine of a mountain.
Winter can be beautiful!
Christmas Eve I heard a band playing outside! Who says nothing happens outside the Centro?!
Santa band
I picked up an 8.5 kilo Turkey, which is about 19 lbs on Christmas Eve from Calagrana. It came stuffed with aromatics and stuffing balls cooked on the side. Such a pretty day. Winter in Umbria is upon us. I took a picture.
Niccone valley, all buttoned up for winter.
Christmas Eve we were invited to friends house for dinner in Montone. We walked down to the small square to see the town tree. And a presepe (crèche) on the way back.
Montone tree in the one and only piazza.Presepe contest in town. People put these nativities outside and townsfolk vote.
There were six for dinner, our Montone friends and an Australian couple who are part time Montone residents. An extra special evening. Delicious food and good conversation. We went outside their home to view their Presepe. I thought it was lovely and a bit spooky. I would vote for it!
When we got home that evening we found this in the hall. A little something for Babbo Natale and his reindeer.
I cooked the Turkey and made mashed potatoes, gravy, broccoli and the dressing from Ely on Christmas. Very nice and now I don’t have to cook for a while! I see many turkey sandwiches in our future!
Pre-gravyFinished gravyTacchino was delizioso!
Later we had the very special panettone we pre-order from the bakery in the Centro, pistacchio creme. Amazingly delicious.
Today is also a holiday here. We are taking it easy after our over indulgences of yesterday. Turkey sammiches for lunch! 🥪 ~~~~~~ Alla prossima! Nancy 💕
As I mentioned in the last post we were going to Calagrana. It was coolish but nice and sunny today. Good Thanksgiving weather! We drove Christie and Jane along with ourselves. At table was a great mix of people. There were fourteen of us. The restaurant had two other tables of two and one of four.
It turns out I knew some people either actually or virtually at all the tables. Two were people I was only Facebook friends with Joan and Giovani who I enjoyed meeting. They live in Deruta – the Ceramics town. And Cathy and Sal who we met a few years ago when they viewed our apartment. They ended up buying out in the country in the beautiful valley south of Gubbio. Then there was Tanya, Lisa, Nigel and Michael who are local friends.
At our table were six Italians, one British, and seven Americans. A great mix with me getting to use my Italian because I was near the Italian group. The Italians are all enthusiastic Thanksgiving fans. Especially Fabio 😁. We buy our olive oil from him.
The meal. Ely had made a lovely group of four finger foods. I know there was date wrapped in prosciutto, arancia, and two others I couldn’t identify. I am missing one in my picture because I ate one before remembering to take a picture 🫤
Then came a delicious risotto with zucca and Scamorza cheese. Smoky flavor. Albi is a Milanese and risotto is their special dish. The rice was al dente, it had a very, slight crunch in the mouth. Perfetto!
Then the feast. Turkey with all the trimmings. The bird was 18 kilos or about 40 pounds.
Sweet potatoes
The dessert was a ricotta tart with candied fruit and vanilla gelato. A treat because they don’t often have vanilla here.
Our friend Christie who was one of the couple who bought our previous house can really sing well and she gave us a song. The song was, Put Some Sugar in My Bowl. 🙂 Oh la la.
We arrived at one pm and left at five thirty. A normal Italian pranzo with friends. I thank Susan and Gary for treating us to our meals. Luther and I provided the wine. I thank Ely and Albi and Ristorante Calagrana for the feast! And I am thankful for all the people I can call friends here. Makes me very happy.💕
On our way out, I paused to take this photo of the valley from the restaurant at dusk. The half moon had risen. It was lovely. I hope that all that celebrate it, had a nice Thanksgiving.
We are in Thanksgiving week. There are a few other things happening. We have done some doctor stuff. We got our flu shots Tuesday. But we want a Covid booster and our doctor said we need to go to the health department (CUP). Well I asked in the Facebook group for expats here called Umbrialiens and got some interesting insights. I got a link from a friend for online appointments and was surprised that none were nearby. Another friend north of us said the Upper Tiber Valley, where we are, has a shortage of vaccine. Only health care people and over 80 years old can get it. I guess that explains the lack of locations near us. I really don’t understand how our little area doesn’t have vaccines when the rest of our region does. 🤦🏻♀️. Mystifying. Anyway, we made an appointment in a town near the lake and will go in December. I know so many people with the virus. I really don’t want to get it, or if I do, I want it to be not terrible. ~~~~~~~~ I had a lovely coffee with a good friend, Elizabeth today. She is doing well and expecting a lot of guests in the upcoming months. She wrote a book a few years ago about the Upper Tiber Valley called Sustenance which is a wonderful chronicle of the artisanal producers in the valley. ~~~~~~~~ We had a lovely dinner with our friends Susan and Gary last night. We went to Grace, our nice neighborhood restaurant. Good food. Great to catch up. You may remember they were our first friends here and had the small apartment we stayed in during our first renovation. And another bigger place. They have sold both so they won’t be here often and we miss them a lot. We are simpatico is in all ways. Hard to meet people like this. We did plan a vacation together next year for October. Should be fun. To the Loire. We are compatible travel companions and always have fun together. 🥰 My most interesting dish from dinner was a red cabbage soup. I love the color!
I also met with my architect, Irma, at Nicoletti, the falegname (cabinet maker) who will be making our cabinets. It turned out to be productive but somewhat stressful. The decisions I was making I’ll have to live with for a long time. 😳 I was surprised to see the list of orders for custom made cabinets included the UK and France. It was cheaper for Nicoletti to make them and ship them than to have them made in their own country. I went into the factory part which was a beehive of activity. They can make ANYTHING exactly like you want. Pretty impressive. Anyway, now I’m in the queue. They will make them in January or February and install them in March. Hopefully the first two weeks of March since we will be in the US after that. I don’t really want my house-sitters to have to deal with it! I could always put them off until we return I hope! ~~~~~~~~ Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. We will go to Calagrana which will be making the traditional meal. The evolution of Thanksgiving at Calagrana is interesting. Ely being British and Alberto Italian didn’t know much about the feast. About 9 years ago our friends Susan and Gary wanted to have thanksgiving but they couldn’t cook the huge turkey at home. So Susan hired Ely to roast one for her, plus appetizers etc. Ely was up all night roasting the 35 pound bird and talking to her sister in Philadelphia who collaborated. We picked up the turkey and had the feast at Susan and Gary’s house. That was the same for the next year. Then we decided it was easier for us to go to Calagrana than to bring the bird from there to us. Ely and Albi invited us into their home since the restaurant was closed for the winter. That went for a few years. Then, Ely having become an enthusiastic Thanksgiving fan, decided to open the restaurant for the feast to anyone who reserved. So now that’s what we do. Tomorrow we are guests of Susan and Gary and we will be a table of ten I think.
I am thinking that next year, once I’ve got a kitchen, I’ll have a meal at our house maybe for our single friends who would enjoy coming together for the feast. And some of our other new friends. Since Susan and Gary now live in Florence and have sold here I’m not sure how often we will see them.
HAPPY THANKS GIVING. EVERYONE! There will be a post about our meal soon.
I don’t think I posted about my recurrent sinus infection? I think not. I had an infection back in June. I started at the dentist because I thought the pain was from a tooth. She said I needed to see an Otorinolaringoiatra, or in plain terms a ENT doc. In June he gave me an antibiotic and it made it go away. It came back just before our cruise. It made that a bit difficult and when I came back I started to try to find treatment. I got more antibiotics and a prescription for a CT scan. The antibiotics didn’t work this time. I made an appointment at a diagnostic center in Città di Castello north of us. I got the CT scan (€120). Back to the doc yesterday. He wants yet ANOTHER scan. So tomorrow I go back for a different scan. Then he thinks I need an endoscopy of my nose. Ugh. But I feel really crummy. I want this fixed, if possible.
For those interested in how this works here, all this has been private pay until yesterday. The ENT doc charges €100 for a consult. Fine. That’s not bad. The scans are not expensive. But yesterday, the appointment when I returned with the scan was free. And the endoscopy will also be free under the Italian health system. The way Luther and I do it is pay for the first appointment then normally we get into the system so the treatment is free. This isn’t true for tests like an MRI, radiograph or CT scan. Those you do at a private diagnostic center. But they are cheap compared to US costs. ~~~~~~~~ One pet peeve I have is the ridiculous waste they have here for medicines. These, in the picture below, are for one month of blood pressure meds for me. I take 2 pills a day. Unlike in the US, where they come in a plastic bottle, here they come in bubble packs and boxes. This seems like an inordinate amount of waste. I don’t know why it is this way.
We had a nice lunch on the weekend. Here are a couple of pictures. First one is on the way. I tried to lighten it but if I did I lost that dramatic sky. So, it is what it is!
Umbria is a heavily agricultural region. I have written about the four main crops, winter wheat, corn, sunflowers and tobacco. Today I got to see a farm with animals. It was the first time I got a real idea of how this all works here. Many of our guests have commented on the fact they never see pastured livestock. Yes, sheep are often seen but cattle are not. They are mainly kept in the barns and fed or they have small outside pens. No pastures. It is due to the lack of manpower, fencing, space.
Today, I was part of a group of women, our former apartment buyers and two of their friends who are friends with Angela Pauselli, the daughter of the farmer who makes this pasta. I was happy to give us all a ride over there. I bought a lot! More than this picture!
This is an artisanal pasta maker here in Umbertide — Pauselli. They use old wheat varieties milled special for the pasta. We have purchased from them before but the shop is simply never open so I haven’t been able to get more. Sadly they are farmers and not marketers. They don’t promote the product or try to sell it. It makes me sad because it is very special and a very excellent product. It will disappear soon with no one to help. I am betting the slow food people would want to promote this. I will try to see what I can do.
We got a tour of the farm facilities from Angela’s dad. It is an extensive farm with a lot of livestock. They have a large solar farm so are somewhat sophisticated. Plus, as always they grow grapes (make wine for the family to drink), grow olives for oil, I saw a peach orchard, there were maybe 30 chickens. And pigs. The cattle were segregated into barns. The first was all the castrated males, destined to be butchered at about age two for meat. These cattle live in a barn. They are not pastured. Not the best life 🙁.
The castrated boys destined for butchering.
Animals are not generally pastured here. They are in the barns or in small enclosures. They feed them from the enormous, round hay bales they harvest during summer. The “girls” who were all together, along with the bull, and away from the young castrated males were mostly Limosine, Chianina or Charolais cattle. Almost all pure white. In the past the Chianina were used for all facets of a farm. They pulled the plow, pulled the cart, provided milk and provided meat. To me they are beautiful, large and known for their gentleness and docility.
Mom and calf.The bull. He was huge but seemed sweet.Bales of hay for the fodder.Spewing the hay into the troughs.Future prosciutto.Happy chickens!
When I got home I made pasta for dinner, 🙂, what else! I used my butter roma tomato sauce and some guanciale and pecorino romano. Mmmm.
We visited a caseificio, or cheeserie, today called I Formaggi del Pastore. It is owned and operated by the Monni family who moved here with their herd of 300 Sardinian sheep in 1960. These sheep have milk of excellent quality. Land was scarce in Sardinia but Umbria was full of abandoned farms with lush pastures.
A photo of a photo in the shop.
I know them because they sell at our Saturday kilometer zero market and are my favorite cheese source. Besides the Pecorino cheese, from the sheep, they sell goat cheese which is unusual here, also fresh mozzarella, fresh ricotta and fresh eggs. They have other Sardinia specialties like cheese filled pasta which makes a quick and delicious dinner. We visited the farm for the first time today. We are scouting out possible places to take our niece and her husband who are coming to visit the first week in October. She would like to see them making the cheeses. We were unable to see the proprietor today so we will try to talk to them Saturday at the market.
The farm is just below the pretty hill town of Montone. The views on the roads to the farm are nothing short of amazing.
Montone seen from below
Of course we bought some cheese. This one is classic semistagionato Pecorino. That means it has been aged for three months. It is still soft but it is firm. It’s my favorite. Luther likes stagionato, which is aged from three months to one year.
Hopefully, if all goes well we will be taking Rachel and Alex back to the caseificio to see the process. I will, of course, be taking pictures. Ciao!
It is agosto, August, time stops here. I read some complaints on Facebook expat groups about the fact you can’t get anything done now because everyone is on vacation. You might be surprised, but really everything does stop. Go to your bank. There are no tellers. All construction stops. Factories close. Everyone is at the beach or in the mountains. My comment to the complainer, who said Italy can’t progress because of this stupid August thing, was to say, Viva la difference. Although it can and is frustrating to live in a culture so unlike the culture in the US. The very nature of the inconveniences make Italy, Italy. I didn’t move here for convenience and US sameness. I moved here precisely for the differences. For 45 years I worked in the “progressive” USA and fought for a work/life balance. Who is to say the crazy work, work ethic of the US is better?
On a lighter note, I walked to and from the Wednesday market and I grabbed a couple shots of this newly created “garden(?)”. I was amused. Snow White and her dwarves, fake grass, fake water lilies! Who says the Italians can’t be tacky? 🤣😂😅
I forgot to mention that we learned a little more about our apartment. Paolo, our cabinet maker, seems to be fascinated with this apartment. He was surprised, as so many are, to find a place like this in this area and in this building. Unexpected I guess.
Anyway, he must have mentioned it to other people and in the process he learned the original owner was a strange one. He had a storefront but did no business, his money sources were not known and he seemed to have no visible means of support. This means one thing to me. And you can probably guess what that is. He ended up bankrupt and this apartment went up for auction. The people we bought from were it’s second owners. I assume they got it for cheap. The original owner is no longer living. It is always interesting to learn about your house.
Again I made pesto. I wish you were here, I would give you some!
The title of this post is the name of Italy’s famous flying team. It means the tri-colored arrows — tri-colored for the colors of the Italian flag. It is recognized as one of the best aerobatic air patrols internationally. They fly Aermacchi MB-339 single-engine, two-seat advanced training and light tactical support jets. There are ten jets, nine fly in formation and there is a single outlier. We were thrilled here in Umbria to be paid a visit by this famous team. They headquartered at the Assisi airport for the week, flying practice runs over the countryside and doing two air shows, one in Perugia and the other in Foligno.
I should also mention, in the time since we moved here the Perugia/Assisi airport has really grown. There used to be only 3 or 4 flights a week but now we can fly from there all over Europe. And it is so easy to use. Twenty minutes south of us with easy parking and only 2 gates. It makes air travel fun again! ~~~~~~~~ Last week Paolo, our cabinetmaker, finally finished the work. His last thing was a built in cabinet with shelves into an odd triangular shaped space in the main hallway. When we moved in it was empty with no molding so I assume something was built in and removed by the seller. There was also an ugly spot on the wall that had been hidden. Our painter, Luca, fixed this when he painted but the space cried out for something to fill it.
Here is the finished cabinet. I think it looks nice. I will find something else to put on the empty shelf. And we will use the cabinet below to store the bags of pellets in the wintertime. Good place to hide them.
Lunch today was a panino. We had gotten a sample of flooring for our new kitchen and had to return it today. On the way home we picked up some nice prosciutto, both cotto (cooked) and crudo (cured). Prosciutto is just the word for ham here. I also bought a delicious ciabatta bread. Did you know that meant slippers? It is for its shape. The bread is chewy and really tasty unlike much Umbrian bread.
